Our Approach

ICEF Canada supports the Tekera Resource Centre and its surrounding community of 8000+ residents. To ensure development practice is holistic, inclusive, non-colonial, and champions the strengths of the Tekera community, we use a variety of approaches recommended by the United Nations and culturally appropriate practice and policy.

Self-Sustainability

Support

Economic

Education

Infrastructure

Community

Health

Well-being

Self-Sustainability

01. Support

02. Business

03. Education

04. Infrastructure

05. Social

06. Health

07. Personal Well-Being

We believe that supporting a community holistically through a locally driven development model is the key to ending poverty, increasing health, and growing economically. Our 5 unique programs intersect with one another to create a complementary and supportive framework. This ensure inclusion for all members of our community, as well as an opportunity to thrive. This is important, as health and well-being are intrinsically associated. We address this in all our programming. This approach looks at how factors such as economics, gender, health and well-being, education, culture, early childhood development, age, class, social inclusion, food security, race, and (dis)ability, all factor into decreasing inequity and inequality.

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The social determinants of health are the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and the wider set of forces and systems shaping the conditions of daily life. These forces and systems include economic policies and systems, development agendas, social norms, social policies and political systems.

- World Health Organization

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Often in international development, organizations implement individual programs. They may implement a school in one country, while opening a medical clinic in another. While this might sound like a good thing to do - these stand-alone projects often fail because without wider support to the community, residents often cannot participate in the project being offered. This inability could be due to ill health, lack of money, poor job prospects, or the inability to gain resources. Additionally, relying on outside financing is unsustainable if the community hopes to be able to have control of their own future and well-being. This is why ICEF focuses on offering a spectrum of local quality programs that can be undertaken and grown by the local community.

ICEF champions the resources that the community already possesses. We use an asset-based community development approach to ensure that the community’s strengths are being utilized for a sustainable future. All our program ideas come from community-focused meetings and are implemented only after an impact assessment is complete. This ensures that the program is indeed needed in the community and that, if implemented, it will be viable to sustain. This practices changes the narrative in development work wherein donors dictate where and how funds are spent.

The community members of Tekera have the most important voices. It is their futures being impacted by foreign intervention. ICEF and TRC are therefore very selective when moving forward with programs to ensure there are both financial resources and community support. This is foundational to achieving successful and self-sufficient programming.

Our mandate is to support Tekera in achieving 100% self - sufficiency. We hope soon, TRC will not require any foreign funding. In this way, residents will gain control over their lives, make decisions that culturally best suit their families and communities, and ensure that their development is in their own hands.